Saturday, January 15, 2011

Ethics, Opinions, and Peace of Mind

When I started this blog, I wanted it to be all encompassing. Yes, I wanted to review all the hottest new frozen treats, but the actual world of ice cream is a gigantic multi-billion dollar industry that could probably be covered all day long if you really wanted. Just cover every mom and pop shop all the way up to the big guys like Unilever and Nestle and you'll be writing all day.

I was talking to my buddies last night and as always, at some point I mention ice cream. In particular, I speak of the review I'm about to post in the next few hours. Well, my bud chimes in and says he saw a chilling (sorry) expose on franchising, and part of the one hour show focused on cold stone creamery. I have not seen if for myself, but apparently it revolves around former Florida franchisee Cecil Rolle explaining just how terrible it is to try and run a Cold Stone franchise. Cold Stone has threatened legal action against CNBC and has used the argument that Mr. Rolle has already lost his lawsuit against Cold Stone. this is the webpage for that particular episode, though pretty much all mention of cold stone has been removed except for a link on the right hand side.

The question I ask is "do I (do you & do we) want to dig further into stories like this?" Part of me finds it terribly fascinating from both the simple prospect of owning a ice cream franchise to the more complicated matters of studying cold stone's business model and management style. I have no delusion that running a franchise is a simple task, and maybe cold stone is just a harsher version of your typical problems. I'm not really sure what to think at the moment, but I will mention that I stumbled across some pretty harsh comments on this new york post article talking about the possible legal action.

Anyway, let me know what you think. Also, please note that I am not saying they are the evilest people out there, there are plenty of others who I'm are also doing awful things. Ok, back to the happy stuff.

3 comments:

actually yeah, I'd love to hear more about things like this-- while I happen to really LOVE your ice cream reviews (you have gotten me to try a few things I might normally have passed by), hearing about the industry is fascinating as well.